Budget restraints forced hospitals to drop 3,500 acute-care beds last year.

The hospital has 195 acute-care beds, and in 2003 admitted over 9,700 patients.

Instead, the goal must be to keep patients healthy and, when that fails, to treat them efficiently, avoiding the $1,000-a-day acute-care bed whenever feasible.

In Toronto, the provincial capital, 2,900 of 15,000 acute-care beds have been taken out of service.

The hospital has been operating only six acute-care beds since July.

We propose reducing the large number of unneeded acute-care beds in hospitals to finance better long-term care for elderly people.

For inpatient care, the report said the need for acute-care beds would increase to 2,700 by 1991.

Adequate supplies are critical at the hospital center, which has 650 acute-care beds and serves as a major trauma center for the region.

In 1986, slightly more than 38 percent of its acute-care beds were occupied; the industry-wide average was about 44.9 percent.

More than two-thirds of the hospital's acute-care beds are private.